


Flowers for my Kingdom

by ToAStranger



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Power Dynamics, Voiles Week 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6104080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToAStranger/pseuds/ToAStranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After separating from Stiles' body, the nogitsune disappears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers for my Kingdom

PERSEPHONE: and if I do not want your heart?  
HADES: I will give you anything, my dark and darling wife.  Anything you ask.  
HADES: What would you have of me?  What would you have?  
PERSEPHONE: [her hands around his throat] I would have your kingdom, husband mine.  I would have all that you have and all that you are.  Will you give it?  Will you give it?  
HADES: I will give it, I will give it, I will give it.

     --        Elisabeth Hewer | _the greek tragedy I’ll never write_

* * *

 

_immortality_

He smells it before he sees it.  It’s fresh and bundled up on the counter, tied with a silk ribbon of white. 

Stiles picks it up and frowns.  He inhales the velvety scent that clings to soft leafs.  It’s heady, cleansing, gentle on his nerves.  It calms him in a way he cannot name, which is quite the feat considering the disaster of the last few months, dealing with the aftermath of the nogitsune and the spirit’s sudden disappearance just after separating from Stiles’ body.  He’s been weak and frazzled ever since, but as time has gone by, he has grown stronger.

The sage is a pleasant surprise.  He wonder if perhaps Melissa harvested it from her bushel in the McCall backyard.  He decides to send her a _thank you_ the first chance he gets and places the fresh bunch in a small glass of water.

He’ll scour his mother’s old cookbooks later for recipes. 

* * *

 

_think of me_

“Any plans for spring break?” Allison asks as they take their seats for their first period.

“It’s like a month away,” Scott frowns over Stiles’ desk at her.

“So?” she shrugs.  “We deserve a fun break after everything, don’t we?”

Scott casts a furtive glance Stiles’ way, who rolls his eyes and cracks his physics textbook open.  He falters when he finds a mess of white clover pressed between the pages.  Blinking down at them, he frowns, and plucks one up.

“What’s that?” Scott tilts his head.

“Flowers,” Stiles mutters, turning the clover over between his fingers.

“Starting a scrapbook in the school texts, Stiles?” Allison teases, leaning over to nudge him with her shoulder.

Stiles snorts and drops the flower back to rest against the chapter on matter.  “Hardly.”

“Where’d it come from then?” Scott asks.

“No clue.”

Scott hums and Allison looks like she’s about to say more—about the flowers or about spring break, Stiles isn’t sure—when their teacher walks in.  Class begins, and by the time it’s over, everyone but Stiles has forgotten the clovers pressed between the pages of his textbook.

* * *

 

_loyalty, devotion, faithfulness_

The violets on his pillow are what finally sets Stiles’ _what the actual shit_ senses to high alert.  His window is still open, but the room is otherwise empty.  It still gives Stiles pause in the doorway, clutching at his backpack, and frowning at the sight of silk soft petals scattered over his bed.

The gesture, while romantic, is terrifying.

He breaks out his laptop from the doorway.  He does not enter the room further; doesn’t trust it.

It takes him perhaps five minutes to find what he needs on a website about herbs, meanings, and herbal remedies.  When he scrolls through and finds the sage—the first of the mysteriously appearing plants—he shudders upon reading its meaning.  The clover doesn’t put him anymore at ease.  The violets makes him waver.

Slamming his laptop shut, he shoves to his feet from where he’d settled, cross legged, against the jams.  He stalks over to his bed and snatches up a handful of violets.

At his desk, he furiously scribbles a note, and then leaves them and it on the window sill.  He makes quick work of packing a bag, shoots a text to Scott, and calls his dad on his way down the stairs.  He tells him to go to the McCalls’ after his shift, just in case.  He doesn’t look back.

On the window sill, his note waits: _Immortal or not, I will not think of you.  I am not loyal to you.  You have nothing I want_.

* * *

 

_pleasures_

The bouquet of sweet pea makes Stiles’ stomach roll.  He knows it’s a promise.  One that rings true.  One that has already been fulfilled in his dreams—or perhaps his nightmares.

The flowers are an array of pinks, purples, and blues.  It is tied artfully to the slats in his locker.

At his side, Lydia tilts her head.  “Secret admirer?”

“That’s so sweet,” Kira smiles.

“Not really,” Stiles grumbles.

“Not really secret?” Lydia asks.  “Or not really sweet?”

Isaac grunts from somewhere behind the three of them.  “Probably both.”

“I don’t know who it is,” Stiles crosses his arms.  “I have a… a feeling, but—“

“Well,” Isaac brushes by and inhales deeply before wincing away and sneezing once, twice, three times.  “I can only smell _you_ under the—jesus, those flowers are strong.”

Stiles snorts, stepping forward and unraveling the string before tearing the flowers away from his locker door, pushing them toward Isaac.  “Give those to Allison or something,” he mutters.

“Really?” Isaac’s eyes go wide.

“Really, Stiles jerks his locker open, fishes the books he needs for sixth period out, and then snaps it shut.  “I’ll see you guys later.”

They don’t protest when he goes, but Lydia watches, brow furrowed.

* * *

 

_courage, strength_

He finds the bunch of thyme in the driver side seat of his car.  Teeth grit, he climbs in and peals out of the school parking lot without another thought.

The drive to the preserve is a short one.  When he arrives, he is along and angry and scared, but he stalks into the trees anyways—bat in one hand, thyme in the other.  He stomps his way through the forest, knowing exactly where he needs to go, and finding a dark portrait of himself sitting in wait by the Nemeton.

He throws the thyme down onto the ground between them, face set in a snarl.  The nogitsune looks up at him, as if surprised to see him there.  But the expectant look on his own features reflecting back at him tells Stiles another story.  One that involves being _stalked_.  One that involves walking right into a _trap_.

His fingers tighten around the aluminum bat.  “Keep your fucking flattery.  I don’t want it.”

“You don’t like my gifts?” the nogitsune tilts his head, affecting a wounded expression.  “That hurts.”

“You should have _stayed_ gone.” Stiles teeth grit so tight his jaw aches, lifting the bat just slightly, threat wordless.

“Aw,” his lips twitch up in amusement as he pushes to his feet, carrying Stiles’ shape and form with much more confidence, much more grace, than Stiles ever could.  “That’s cute.  Really.  And the fact that you’re here alone to, uh… warn me off?  Just goes to prove how right I am about you.”

“Courage,” Stiles spits.  “I really think it’s more akin to stupidity.”

“No, no, no.”  The nogitsune stops just before the bunch of thyme, crouching and plucking it up, examining it with a cool interest before his gaze flicks up to Stiles.  “I wouldn’t have picked you if you were stupid, Stiles.”

“Picked me?”

The nogitsune regards him with dark eyes, gaze dropping only to drag up slow; Stiles shivers and holds his ground.  “I had options.  Did you get the flowers?”

Stiles’ face burns.  “What options?”

“Possession, Stiles.” The nogitsune rolls his eyes and stands up straight.  “I could have possessed someone else.  Anyone else.  I possessed _you_.  Or don’t you remember?”

Something churns over in Stiles’ belly.  He remembers.  Remembers everything: the fear, the power, the lust.  He remembers the addictive sensation of the nogitsune in his skin.  He remembers it all.

“No.  I don’t imagine you _can_ forget.”  The nogitsune smiles when Stiles looks away, folding his hands behind his back and trailing forward slow.  “Did you get my flowers?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Stiles hisses.  “And I’m not interested—“

He forgot how fast the nogitsune is.  Forgot how strong.

The fox spirit has him by the jaw before Stiles can move away.  His fingers dig in, and Stiles grunts, rolling up onto his toes.  It isn’t painful, but it’s a near thing.  He doesn’t risk moving.

“You’re lying,” he grins and draws Stiles stumbling close until they’re flush, and Stiles drops the bat in order to clutch at the nogitsune’s wrist, heat climbing up his neck.  “But that’s okay.  I’m always up for a game or two.”

“I’m _not_ —“

“Hard to get, for instance.  I’m good at that game; I like chasing.  But you won’t like being chased.”  Stiles’ jaw throbs; the nogitsune’s fingers digging in.  “So I’ll make it easy.”

Stiles’ laugh is breathy—sharp and bitter.  “ _Easy_?”

“I need you, Stiles.” He confesses, smile tight.  “And I _will_ have you.”

Something clicks.  At first, Stiles think sit might be his own jaw dislocating under the pressure.  It isn’t.

He goes still, realizing distantly it’s nothing more than an idea solidifying in his head.  Nothing more than his body recognizing just what the nogitsune has revealed.  It’s nothing more than the truth.

The nogitsune is wearing his face, yes.  But he looks tired.  Looks like Stiles did when they first separated.  He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping or eating or anything in between.  Stiles almost feels sorry for him. 

“That’s right,” Stiles fingers wrap tight around the nogitsune’s wrist, tight enough to bruise, and Stiles takes a great deal of satisfaction in the way the nogitsune’s eyes widen.  “ _You_ need _me_.”

He falters.  “Without one another, we’ll die—“

“Without _me_ ,” Stiles huffs out a laugh, pulling the nogitsune’s hand away from his face.  “ _You_ die.”

The nogitsune jerks away, sneer on his lips, but something bright and terrified in his eyes.  “… _yes_.”

Laughing, strained and hysteric with disbelief, Stiles scrubs his hands over his face, then up into his hair until it stands on end.  “Oh, that’s _rich_.”

“Stiles—“

“You’re dying.”

“Yes.”

“You need _me_ ,” Stiles cackles, almost mad.  “You _want_ me.”

“ _Yes_ ,” the nogitsune hisses, eyes narrowing dangerously. 

Sobering, Stiles regards him, gaze a cool slate, chin tipping up.  “Then you will have to _earn it_ ,” he snarls.

“And how do you propose I do that?”

“Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”

* * *

 

_love everlasting; my everything_

Days go by until Stiles hears anything.  He keeps tabs on what is going on in the surrounding counties, listening for any hide of hair just as he had so fervently when the nogitsune first took off. 

There is nothing.  No natural disasters, no odd deaths.  Nothing.

Then he finds the yarrow and lungwort in abundance on his doorstep.  The yarrow is a surprise, splashes of white nearly swallowed up by the indigo of the lungwort. 

He recognizes an offer when he sees one.

 _Everything, everything,_ it says.  _I will give you everything_.

* * *

 

He leaves the sprig of shocking red at the center of the Nemeton.  He leaves and does not look back.

The nogitsune will find him.  The salvia he leaves there will ensure that.  His message is clear.

_you are mine.  forever mine._


End file.
